Serac
|-| Introduction = Please do not use Serac or her coding without permission. Serac is an IceWing princess. She was not gifted (she prefers the word "cursed") with animus powers until much later in her life...it ruined her destiny, destroyed her very existence... ...all because of a feeble mistake. |-| Profile = Please do not use Serac or her coding without permission. << ( a p p e a r a n c e ) >> ---- ⊁ very pale white scales with undertones of a frost-pink ⊁ dark-sapphire eyes and a ruff of white horns ⊁ her horns are tipped with an almost-black magenta ⊁ wings are edged with the same almost-black magenta ⊁ striped with black, magenta, and white ⊁ often curled into a tight, shivering ball ⊁ scarred forearms, snowy white wing membranes << ( p e r s o n a l i t y ) >> ---- ⊁ anxious / paranoid ⊁ very hostile to newcomers ⊁ super sweet once you get to know her ⊁ more comfortable with dragons that she knows well ⊁ tries to avoid talking with dragons ⊁ afraid of herself and her powers ⊁ feels like herself only when dancing or painting ⊁ has an instinctive fondness for RainWings ⊁ a bit resentful ⊁ tries to be funny, but isn't good at humour ⊁ doesn't like being an IceWing ⊁ hates mirrors ⊁ faints at the sight of blood |-| Description = I'm n-not a monster. I never was, I never will be - you have to believe me, please, please...I don't know what I'm going to do, I never know, b-but you're the only one I feel safe with... Serac has pale, pale overscales, tinted with the slightest hue of a very light pink. Broad stripes of rich magenta run down the length of her body, overlapping more slender streaks of white and black. Her tell-tale fringe of icicle horns is white, but tipped with a dark, twilight-coloured shade of magenta. Her eyes are the colour of a sapphire...a severe contrast to her wings and claws, which are white, save for their tips...again, dipped in that same dark magenta as her horns, but glittering with a liquid brilliance. In a similar fashion to Princess Ruby of the SkyWings, Serac has had a row of miniature gemstones (sapphire, opal, amythest, respectively) embedded between the scales around her eyes. The same kinds of gemstone glint along her wings, neck, wrists, ankles and tail - it gives her an ethereal, otherwordly appearance. What many dragons don't know is that the addition of these decorations was not done out of fastidiousness. Serac was attempting to recreate the natural beauty of a RainWing - the one kind of dragon that she really relates to. Sometimes, when she closes her eyes, she likes to imagine that she is a RainWing...away from the hostilities and rigour of the IceWing kingdom, where she truly ''belongs. A necklace of one silver circle hangs around her neck. Despite being thrown out of the palace and forced to live in seclusion on some little-known outcropping, her caretakers demand that she still look and act like a royal - and so she must, but she is forever resentful of it. ...no, not him, not him, dear moons, please, not him...please, please let him be okay, I didn't mean to, I never mean to, it was an accident! I told him, I said, I'm a monster, I'm a monster... When Serac was still a young dragonet, her parents brought her and several of the more diplomatic princesses to the rain forest, in a vague attempt to establish some sort of trade negotiation with the RainWing queen. The negotiations took about one week - the most miserable week in their lives. It was humid and hot in the rain forest...swelteringly so, and it hurt to breathe, because the air was so filled with water. Only one dragon was perfectly content - and that one dragon was Serac. She adored the jungle. The small rodents scuttling up the trees, the smell of earth and trees and fruit of all kinds and shapes. While her parents, her sisters and the various guards barricaded themselves inside their leaf-huts in a vain attempt to escape the rain forest, Serac was sampling fruits, learning to tree-glide and, essentially, having a wonderful time. But the best part was yet to come. On the last night of the negotiations, the RainWings held a small celebration for the IceWings. Dancing, comedy, swirling colours, veils and leaves. Although most of the IceWings regarded these proceedings with a wintry politeness that clearly said ''I'm suffering moons get me out of here, ''Serac was enchanted. She wanted to be just like those shining, shining RainWings. But IceWings don't dance. IceWings don't laugh like that. IceWings don't like bright colours and the mingling of social ranks. Even the RainWing queen had joined her subjects on that night - Serac would sooner eat a toad than imagine her severe mother (the IceWing queen, an ambitious dragoness named '''Col') doing such a thing. When she returned home, she locked herself in her room and tried to mimic the movements of the RainWings, with all the clumsy fervour of a two-year-old dragonet. It was hard, very hard - she was puffing by the end of it, and yet...and yet she was...she was proud. It was kind of like battle techniques, but more fun. And more...well, it was more herself, ''in a way. It wasn't her living someone else's life. It was her being who she was, and for that blissful moment, she was happy. Dancing became her obsession, but Serac was forced to keep it hidden, else risk the harsh disapproval of her mother. Whenever she could, though, she would go to the rain forest to see those bright, dancing RainWings. And if she was feeling brave, Serac would even join them (but only if her mother's eyes were diverted, because ''moons, that would be a disaster). The RainWings grew to love Serac like one of their own, and they soon began to specifically request Serac's presence whenever the royal IceWing family happened to be visiting. Of course this wasn't acceptable. By the time Serac was five, her mother - Col - grew suspicious with exactly what Serac's relationship was with the RainWing tribe. After doing some meticulous research, she soon discovered Serac's most un-IceWing-ish behaviour. Swelling with a seething fury, Col confronted Serac. But Serac was done pretending that she was a "good little IceWing princess." She wanted to pursue her dream, and no one - not even her mother - was going to stop her. And so, after a heated argument that seemed to shake the very walls of the palace itself, Serac finally lost it and shouted, "But what if I don't want to be an IceWing anymore?" The silence had been deafening. Col had paused, eyes bulging, mouth working silently and furiously, cold blue eyes blazing down at her, when finally, with what seemed to take a tremendous effort, asked, "And so what would you have chosen? A bumbling MudWing? A lazy, fruit-eating, sun-bathing RainWing?" "Better a lazy RainWing than a stupid IceWing," Serac had flared back, tears stinging her eyes. It took a small eternity when she had finally fled that awful palace and its horrid rules. Col let her go - she was sure that her ungrateful daughter would return within the next day. But Serac had gone past the borders of the kingdom by the time Col grudgingly released a search party. It had taken a while and a few skirmishes, but she had made it - she had made it to her one true home: the rain forest. Of course Col knew where to find her. They brought Serac back to the kingdom, where she was punished with imprisonment and stripped of her rank. Col even threatened to disinherit her, which was unheard of. But tradition won that battle. Serac remained one of the potential heirs, and yet Col chose to pretend that her youngest daughter no longer existed. Several months later, a fierce war broke out between the three northernmost tribes. The IceWings, the SkyWings and the SandWings, with several mercenary SeaWings working for the highest bidder. Each battle was a heavy loss for all three sides, and yet they continued for two more years. Col consulted her advisors, and they agreed that they could not stand for much longer. Either surrender or seek help...it was with an injured pride that Col turned to what she saw as the only solution: animus magic. It took weeks...months, even, for her to find what she was looking for. It was more a fluke than anything when the IceWing queen finally claimed her prize - a two-year-old animus dragonet who did not yet know the full extent of his powers. A dragonet raised on the streets of Possibility. A rough dragonet, a malleable dragonet, a gullible dragonet. Someone who placed his trust in the powerful, who was prone to blind loyalty. But Col didn't trust him. He was a SandWing - an enemy, despite being only two years of age. Treachery was passed on in blood (she blamed her husband for Serac's "atrocities"), and she would be in an even worse condition if an animus chose to join an opposing side of the war. And so she mapped it out in her head. The SandWing dragonet would enchant several of the more loyal IceWing princesses to become the new generation of animi - once she determined that it was safe, Col herself would be granted this power, and the dragonet would be dealt with accordingly. But of course it wasn't safe, and so the only logical thing to do was to first test it on someone else. Col had to grudgingly admit that Serac was of royal blood. Her undeserving, ungrateful, disgraceful daughter was the obvious candidate, thus, and it was with a most sour taste in her mouth that Col ordered Serac to be brought from the dungeons. It went badly. The dragonet hadn't known what he was doing. The enchantment failed in itself - he had been frightened, and yet he had been occupied with the task of pleasing this newfound master. And he was an untried animus, only beginning to catch a glimpse of his true powers. And so Serac was cursed. True, she was an animus, but she was an impulsive animus. Her spells could only be cast by reflex, controlled by her writhing emotions. Her touch could burn when she was angry, freeze when she was sad, heal when she was feeling merciful - if someone came too close, they would be swept away by the hate and anger and fear of her twisting, writhing, convoluted thoughts...a side affect of her animus powers. No more was she enchanted by the pretty colours of a RainWing dancer, no more was she transfixed by poetry and music and light and laughter. Col smashed her tail to Serac's head in an attempt to knock her unconscious - she burned the scales along the left side of her body, but it had done the trick. Quickly, carefully and without telling more than handful of trustworthy dragons, she exiled Serac to an outcropping, chained her to the floor with bindings embedded with skyfire, and hoped beyond hope that Serac wouldn't escape. The one consolation was that Serac didn't appear to be able to control her powers, and so Col grew a bit bolder. Now Serac is cared for by the most iron-willed dragons in Col's court as the IceWing queen attempts to subdue her to her will - for what a powerful weapon her daughter could be. The general story was that both animus dragons died in some tragic accident - only the royal family and a select amount of aristocrats know the whole tale... Not done! |-| Abilities = I'm not dangerous, I'm not, no, don't listen...don't listen to her, don't listen to Mother, she's - she's the one who made me do these awful things...no, stay back, stay back... Animus Magic Cursed to have the powers of an animus dragon but unable to control her enchantments - she lashes out with her emotions and thoughts, a twisting, convoluted mess that assails anyone who is brave enough to approach her. Again, she has absolutely no control of her animus powers, and more often than not, she is very incoherent and broken when she speaks. Only dragons who do not invoke a sense of fear or hostility in Serac can approach her without fear of being attacked. One time, her brother (a young IceWing named Lichen) came to visit her several months ago. Overjoyed, Serac ran to him and flung her wings around him, and the battle wounds he had sustained from the day before vanished. Another time, Col actually came to check on her - the needed weapon of the Ice Kingdom. Serac reacted with fear - when she saw Col, her talons began to burn like the fiery touch of frostbite, and Col was forced to flee. Serac is kept on a very well-guarded outcropping at the northernmost beach of the kingdom. She is in no state to fly - panic and hysteria often cripple her midflight. It also seems ''to be the general rule that she can't use her powers from afar. The same curse that haunts every animus applies to her as well (she is no exception) - every single time she uses her animus magic, even to cast the most tiny, most simple of spells, she loses a bit of herself... The proper answer is "I'm fine." But if I said that, I wouldn't be telling the truth. Because I'm not fine. I was never fine, and I never will be - take a look at me, just look! '''Frostbreath' Like all IceWings, Serac has a deadly, freezing breath of frost. Like her animus powers, however, this ability is controlled by emotion - she can only use it when she is feeling particularly angry or frightened, and even then, she can never predict when it will erupt from her mouth. Her caretakers don't believe that her powers are based on impulse - they think that she's lying, or something like that, but none of them would dare to tell the IceWing princess that...else risk her blazing, next to unquenchable wrath. She hates using frostbreath. It makes her feel fierce and dangerous inside, and she hates feeling like that - it feels like animus magic, like something that shouldn't be. It takes every scrap of strength and willpower to subdue frostbreath, but even then...sometimes it's not enough. But a tiny part of Serac wishes that she was an ordinary IceWing, if not a RainWing. That her life was back to normal, before the curse of animus powers. When she could use her breath-weapon when she wanted, how she wanted, why she wanted... I'm slipping, I'm slipping, I'm slipping - down the blackest abyss of the ocean. There are shadows here, many shadows, and a constant darkness...closer, closer... Battle Techniques A mediocre warrior, Serac regularly sharpens her claws - partly because there isn't much else to do on the outcropping where she's kept away from "proper civilization," but also because she wants to still be able to defend herself without having to rely solely on her animus magic. Unlike many IceWings, however, Serac chooses to use RainWing hunting techniques and "morph" them into proper defensive (or even offensive) tactics. This makes for the unexpected whenever she fights, and it gives her a very good advantage - except if her opponent happened to be a RainWing. Thus, many of her techniques are less based on her fore-talons and require diversions. Sweeping wings, flashing talons and scales and eyes, a constantly moving tail and agile swerves in seemingly random directions. Although Serac doesn't have camouflage scales (which are a large part of RainWing culture) she still knows how to hide in plain sight - curled beneath the snow, crouched behind a snowdrift, or even quietly slipping into the frigid ocean waters. She loves praciticing her battle techniques, because it feels like dancing and poetry. And ''it's something that she can control - it doesn't explode out of her like magic or frostbreath. Who are you...? I don't...I don't recognize you - no, go away, I'm a monster, don't ''look at me. ''I said don't look at me, don't look at me, stop it, stop it! No, stop! I don't want to hurt you! '''Logic + Emotions' Serac isn't a logical dragon. She bases all of her decisions on her emotions - on the writhing feelings that war inside of her, a constant battle locked between her magic and herself. Thus she is a poor planner, and yet very adequate at improvising and lashing out at dragons who come too close. She isn't very practical-minded, either, and still she dreams of someone coming to rescue her. Of being able to leave this wretched place of stone and snow and frost, and cold seas and unfeeling dragons. She doesn't like her caretakers, she doesn't particularly like her mother, or her father, or any of her sisters. The closest dragon to her is her brother, Lichen, and the majority of RainWings in the jungle. She's terrified of newcomers, which is a reaction based partly on her emotions, and the fear that she holds for herself. She doesn't want to hurt anyone. It just - well, it just happens. ''She can't control it, let alone hold it back. She hurt Lichen that way - she didn't want him to go, and her frustration forced a wave of power out of her, and it burned the majority of Lichen's wing. Col forbade Lichen from ever returning to Serac after that, and so she hasn't seen her brother since. |-| Relationships = Who would ever want to be ''my ''friend? Look what I do. Look at my talons. Look at my eyes. Am I really someone you want to know? '''Col '>> Mother Serac is deathly afraid of Col, and she blames Col - not the little animus - for her curse. Col doesn't dare to visit her youngest daughter, either - she just recieves regular updates from the caretakers, and tries to figure out what to do with Serac in the meantime. Both dragons are comfortable with never seeing each other again. Esker '>> ''Father Esker has always been a cold, distant figure in her life. He's a prince consort - Col refused to give him the title of king. He hates the rain forest, he hates RainWings, and he's gravely disappointed in Serac, despite them having next to know emotional bond. Serac is quite timid around him, and she's somewhat daunted by his imposing and ever-judging aura. 'Lichen '>> Brother Serac loves Lichen, and he's one of the few IceWings who she really trusts. She always looks forwards to his visits - now, Serac feels a constant, pounding guilt for the pain that she inflicted on him. Although she knows that Lichen has long since forgiven her, it doesn't change the past - and it hurts her, because now she knows that he's afraid of her. Y-You're not...you're not afraid of me? I-I thought...I thought...I thought that everyone...well, it doesn't-it doesn't matter, because...three moons, I'm your friend...? 'Savanna '>> Acquaintance Savanna was one of Serac's closest RainWing friends. They were both members of a musical troupe - however, Savanna chose to leave the troupe after Serac was taken away by Col. For a while, the two sent each other letters, but ever since Serac's seclusion-sentence - well, ever since then, Savanna hasn't seen Serac, and they miss each other terribly. |-| Refs = What is art...? I'm not entirely sure, to be honest. I just like the sound of it. Art : Joy Ang! '''A Standard IceWing |-| Trivia = Don't look at me like that, I'm being serious. Some Trivia... ⊁ loves dancing ⊁ very good at poetry ⊁ my first character ⊁ she hates being an animus ⊁ better at using her left talons instead of her right ones ⊁ really, really hates mirrors ⊁ laughs at her own jokes ⊁ very awkward to have conversation with ⊁ sometimes just stares at walls ⊁ likes swimming ⊁ hates being afraid of everything ⊁ doesn't like Col very much ⊁ wishes that she had managed to escape into the jungle ⊁ loves music, but she doesn't get to hear it often ⊁ can't control her powers ⊁ her name means "a block of glacial ice" ⊁ she was named after her great-grandmother ⊁ most feared of all her sisters princesses ⊁ doesn't want to be used as a weapon ⊁ wouldn't get rid of her animus powers, though, if she had the choice ⊁ sometimes feels like she's a monster ⊁ her greatest enemy is herself Category:Characters Category:Females Category:IceWings Category:Animus Category:Status (Royalty)